But if it is put into place, it should come with full, unlimited liability for the content they serve.
If they present an ad that is actually malware, the publisher should be completely responsible for the damage it creates.
That's only reasonable -- they are ones insisting that the reader not block any of the content.
Of course this exposes them to an absurd scale of liability. Especially with encryption malware putting a specific price on the otherwise imprecise value of family photos and personal notes.
But that's really just shifting the cost back to the publisher.
I'm sure one of the first objections is that "we aren't responsible -- we were using a ad service". Well, then why can't the user decline the ad server content separately? They can't have it both ways...
How is "listening carefully" not valid for an audio recording?
Yes, it's subjective. But if two audio works are so similar that a casual listener, not even "listening carefully", considers them the same, why should they be granted a new copyright?
I understand that mastering is a skilled craft that involves many judgement calls. But many skilled crafts, with considerable "sweat of the brow" (in the legal sense) don't result in copyright-worthy works. A brick layer makes judgements constantly. So does a tile setter. And many other workers. They don't get copyrights. For good reason.
Could someone type in a few of those URLs for me so I don't have to?
Not that I really care about David Furnish and his threesome.
My real question is about the validity of the claimed copyright in the legal notice. It's not going to qualify as a strictly functional legal document. Presumably it qualifies as a work of fiction. Or performance art.
The chancellor has to agree to the prosecution. Which almost never happens. But right now Germany really needs Turkish help with the refugee crisis.
This is basically the court (and the government) saying "yes, we have to prosecute you because of politics. Here is the lightest possible wrist slap, and some free publicity for your trouble."
YouTube has a strong, multi-billion-dollar motive for insuring that the DMCA safe harbor provision is actually a safe harbor.
A smaller site would likely cave rather than face a lawsuit -- a lawsuit that is only affordable to larger corporations.
One aspect that is easy to overlook is that YouTube interest isn't fully aligned with their users. No specific video on YouTube is worth all that much to YouTube. They have so much content that removing even the 10 most popular videos just redistributes the views over the other available videos. So YouTube has little motivation to fight for an individual video.
What could really hurt them is being named on ten thousand lawsuits across the U.S. That's a billion dollar nightmare. If even one suit works, everybody with a law degree would be rushing to the courthouse for a piece of the gold rush.
To be clear, he wrote a program that he named "EMAIL", despite it not having the essential elements of a real email system.
It was more like a cubbyhole system at a rural general store than a mail system. It worked only within a single machine with a fixed set of known users. It never had to deal with the challenges of queuing, batch delivery, handling different address formats, etc. that were the challenging problems.
Someone at the DoJ is carefully selecting egregious cases to extend their powers. They either create new precedent or use their failure to do so as a reason to change the underlying rules and laws.
A new rule is stronger and far more valuable than a non-binding precedent from a magistrate judge. They would gladly throw away these three prosecutions for new powers.
As for the value of prosecutions, it's easy to justify them as being inconsequential. These were apparently people looking at pictures, not creating the content or profiting from the distribution.
Police statistics count single-car accidents and deaths during off-duty activities.
If a farmer dies after losing control in a speeding truck, it's not counted as an occupational death. It is for a police officer. If you look on the Officer Down Memorial Page, they include even off duty incidences.
You could argue that it's justified, since police are almost immune to getting traffic tickets, which encourages them to engage in high-risk driving behavior.
Checking the ODMP, they have changed to separating out the police dog deaths. They were previously included in the regular list, which is very misleading. The last two deaths were from a heart attack and an officer running into the rear of a semi-truck. He was on his way home, but it was counted as an on-duty death.
It's obvious that people inside the government with security clearances have that obligation. They must handle classified materials properly. But when you send a warrant to a company, how can you maintain they have an obligation?
I can see exceptions where a company with government work has cleared people and the proper security in place. (That ranges from a simple security container -- a approved locking file cabinet -- up to a full SCIF.) But we are talking the general case where no one at the company has agreed to keep government secrets.
He's one of the best reporters that WaPo currently has. I recognize a few other names if I see them on the byline, but none are memorable enough to recall on their own. And I don't associate them with good or bad reporting (although remembering them usually means good).
Are people still using the count of Twitter followers and Facebook "likes" as indicating anything useful?
You can buy twitter "followers" for trivial amounts of money. Giving away a trinket or discount for a "like" will get millions of results.
If a company is using this as a claim for name recognition, their other claims must be really weak. Or they are counting on the judge to be old and clueless. (Even if they are, law clerks should be whispering into their hearing aid.)
This was such an obvious attempt at judge-shopping for a warrant, I have to wonder if there isn't strategic element.
Even more than terrorism, child pornography is a hot-button topic. You can get almost anything by saying 'child porn'. Especially when it's the real thing, not "is she 15 or 18" that sometimes gets lumped into the term.
First, why go to a magistrate judge? Perhaps because the judge has a reputation of being a rubber stamp. This technique of planting malware on remote machines while operating a criminal enterprise might not pass muster with other judges. But once you get convictions, there is a precedent that lets you go after much less reviled crimes. Next is online harassment, followed by online 'slander'.
Even if that ultimately fails, and it has, the FBI now has the perfect example to take to congress to ask for expanded warrant powers, or even the authority to do this without warrants.
It does initially sound a bit far-fetched, but much less so after the iphone efforts. Someone at the FBI is definitely thinking strategically about how to expand their powers through judicial precedents and legislative action using carefully-selected cases.
I'm not so sure that the issue is how thin-skinned he is. This is a dick-waving contest, and at this instant he has the power. He is making a very public demonstration that the world has to bow down before him.
He could have quietly used the political leverage to 'resolve' the Cypress situation, and in six months everyone would realize that while we were making fun of him, he had outflanked his critics.
I don't see how the background of the situation changes the casual cruelty and reckless disregard for safety when strolling down the line of sitting protestors, spraying them at close range with pepper spray.
If the finance base for a major terrorist organization is a stream of $42 payments, I would say that they have grass-roots support.
When small payments to a local neighbor are required by federal government to be scrutinized this closely, We The People have a bigger problem than terrorists.
Wait... the dogs are credited with finding Viagra?
That puts this in a different light. The dogs aren't actually sniffing out drugs. They are triggering on other things, including tasty food. The near-random searches are turning up related illicit materials, and the dog are given credit for the interception.
How many bags were searched where nothing was found? How do the dogs compare with randomly selecting bags? What about a feed-back based system biased by color/size/wear/origin of earlier interceptions?
I might be soft on police misbehavior, but I could almost accept the actions up to the police dog. I would believe "I misunderstood the rules". The search they did was wrong, but it could conceivably have been done in good faith.
But when the police dog did not trigger and they continued searching, that completely changes the situation. They clearly did understand that the first search was improper, and they were "doubling down". They needed to find contraband to justify their actions.
I'm left speechless by the body cavity search. I can imagine drugs being carried that way when crossing a border or entering a prison. But it seems extremely improbable when driving in a private car.
On the post: Newspaper Association Thinks FTC Should Force Readers To Be Subject To Godawful Ads And Invasive Trackers
But if it is put into place, it should come with full, unlimited liability for the content they serve.
If they present an ad that is actually malware, the publisher should be completely responsible for the damage it creates.
That's only reasonable -- they are ones insisting that the reader not block any of the content.
Of course this exposes them to an absurd scale of liability. Especially with encryption malware putting a specific price on the otherwise imprecise value of family photos and personal notes.
But that's really just shifting the cost back to the publisher.
I'm sure one of the first objections is that "we aren't responsible -- we were using a ad service". Well, then why can't the user decline the ad server content separately? They can't have it both ways...
On the post: Global Archery's Suit Against LARPing.org Tossed
It appears that Global Archery filed for a patent on a arrow design that they were just reselling, not a design that they invented.
They used this patent to threaten competitors, knowing that those competitors couldn't afford to fight in court.
On the post: This Is Bad: Court Says Remastered Old Songs Get A Brand New Copyright
Yes, it's subjective. But if two audio works are so similar that a casual listener, not even "listening carefully", considers them the same, why should they be granted a new copyright?
I understand that mastering is a skilled craft that involves many judgement calls. But many skilled crafts, with considerable "sweat of the brow" (in the legal sense) don't result in copyright-worthy works. A brick layer makes judgements constantly. So does a tile setter. And many other workers. They don't get copyrights. For good reason.
On the post: Web Sheriff Abuses DMCA In Weak Attempt To Hide Info Under UK High Court Injunction, Fails Miserably
Not that I really care about David Furnish and his threesome.
My real question is about the validity of the claimed copyright in the legal notice. It's not going to qualify as a strictly functional legal document. Presumably it qualifies as a work of fiction. Or performance art.
On the post: German Court Insults Free Speech, Bans Comedian From Mocking Turkish President
The chancellor has to agree to the prosecution. Which almost never happens. But right now Germany really needs Turkish help with the refugee crisis.
This is basically the court (and the government) saying "yes, we have to prosecute you because of politics. Here is the lightest possible wrist slap, and some free publicity for your trouble."
On the post: NYU Sues YouTube For Reposting Video After Video Poster Sent DMCA Counternotice
YouTube has a strong, multi-billion-dollar motive for insuring that the DMCA safe harbor provision is actually a safe harbor.
A smaller site would likely cave rather than face a lawsuit -- a lawsuit that is only affordable to larger corporations.
One aspect that is easy to overlook is that YouTube interest isn't fully aligned with their users. No specific video on YouTube is worth all that much to YouTube. They have so much content that removing even the 10 most popular videos just redistributes the views over the other available videos. So YouTube has little motivation to fight for an individual video.
What could really hurt them is being named on ten thousand lawsuits across the U.S. That's a billion dollar nightmare. If even one suit works, everybody with a law degree would be rushing to the courthouse for a piece of the gold rush.
On the post: Guy Who Didn't Invent Email Sues Gawker For Pointing Out He Didn't Invent Email
It was more like a cubbyhole system at a rural general store than a mail system. It worked only within a single machine with a fixed set of known users. It never had to deal with the challenges of queuing, batch delivery, handling different address formats, etc. that were the challenging problems.
On the post: DOJ Deploys Highly-Questionable Legal Arguments In Attempt To Save FBI's Hacking Warrants
"Colossal mistake" or strategic win?
A new rule is stronger and far more valuable than a non-binding precedent from a magistrate judge. They would gladly throw away these three prosecutions for new powers.
As for the value of prosecutions, it's easy to justify them as being inconsequential. These were apparently people looking at pictures, not creating the content or profiting from the distribution.
On the post: Paper That Couldn't Be Bothered To Report On Local Police Misconduct Fires Off Editorial Insulting Writer Who Actually Did
If a farmer dies after losing control in a speeding truck, it's not counted as an occupational death. It is for a police officer. If you look on the Officer Down Memorial Page, they include even off duty incidences.
You could argue that it's justified, since police are almost immune to getting traffic tickets, which encourages them to engage in high-risk driving behavior.
Checking the ODMP, they have changed to separating out the police dog deaths. They were previously included in the regular list, which is very misleading. The last two deaths were from a heart attack and an officer running into the rear of a semi-truck. He was on his way home, but it was counted as an on-duty death.
On the post: Judge Tells Twitter Revealing Classified Stats Isn't Protected By 1st Amendment... But Says Twitter Can Challenge Classification
It's obvious that people inside the government with security clearances have that obligation. They must handle classified materials properly. But when you send a warrant to a company, how can you maintain they have an obligation?
I can see exceptions where a company with government work has cleared people and the proper security in place. (That ranges from a simple security container -- a approved locking file cabinet -- up to a full SCIF.) But we are talking the general case where no one at the company has agreed to keep government secrets.
On the post: Paper That Couldn't Be Bothered To Report On Local Police Misconduct Fires Off Editorial Insulting Writer Who Actually Did
He's one of the best reporters that WaPo currently has. I recognize a few other names if I see them on the byline, but none are memorable enough to recall on their own. And I don't associate them with good or bad reporting (although remembering them usually means good).
On the post: Redaction Failure In FTC/Amazon Decision Inadvertently Allows Public To See Stuff It Should Have Been Able To See Anyway
Sometimes the best that someone can do when something is drifting towards evil is make a mistake.
On the post: Priceline Throws A Fit And Sues USPTO For Not Granting Them Booking.com Trademark
You can buy twitter "followers" for trivial amounts of money. Giving away a trinket or discount for a "like" will get millions of results.
If a company is using this as a claim for name recognition, their other claims must be really weak. Or they are counting on the judge to be old and clueless. (Even if they are, law clerks should be whispering into their hearing aid.)
On the post: Yet Another Court Says FBI's Hacking Tool In Child Porn Case Was An Illegal Search
Even more than terrorism, child pornography is a hot-button topic. You can get almost anything by saying 'child porn'. Especially when it's the real thing, not "is she 15 or 18" that sometimes gets lumped into the term.
First, why go to a magistrate judge? Perhaps because the judge has a reputation of being a rubber stamp. This technique of planting malware on remote machines while operating a criminal enterprise might not pass muster with other judges. But once you get convictions, there is a precedent that lets you go after much less reviled crimes. Next is online harassment, followed by online 'slander'.
Even if that ultimately fails, and it has, the FBI now has the perfect example to take to congress to ask for expanded warrant powers, or even the authority to do this without warrants.
It does initially sound a bit far-fetched, but much less so after the iphone efforts. Someone at the FBI is definitely thinking strategically about how to expand their powers through judicial precedents and legislative action using carefully-selected cases.
On the post: The Erdogan Insult Mess: Dutch Reporter, German Politician Arrested For Mocking Erdogan; Swiss Art Exhibit Targeted Too
This is a dick-waving contest, and at this instant he has the power. He is making a very public demonstration that the world has to bow down before him.
He could have quietly used the political leverage to 'resolve' the Cypress situation, and in six months everyone would realize that while we were making fun of him, he had outflanked his critics.
On the post: UC Davis 'Apologizes' For The Reputation Management Industry's Hyperbole And Your Misunderstanding
On the post: DHS Claims Open Source Software Is Like Giving The Mafia A Copy Of FBI Code; Hastily Walks Back Statement
Someone hacked the account and posted a bogus policy before, but this one is for real.
On the post: Not Funny: How The OFAC Is Outlawing Even The Lamest Attempts At Humor Over Terrorist Fears
When small payments to a local neighbor are required by federal government to be scrutinized this closely, We The People have a bigger problem than terrorists.
On the post: UK Drug Dogs Finding Way More Sausage And Cheese Than Actual Drugs
That puts this in a different light. The dogs aren't actually sniffing out drugs. They are triggering on other things, including tasty food. The near-random searches are turning up related illicit materials, and the dog are given credit for the interception.
How many bags were searched where nothing was found? How do the dogs compare with randomly selecting bags? What about a feed-back based system biased by color/size/wear/origin of earlier interceptions?
On the post: Police Officer Attempts To Set Record For Most Constitutional Violations In A Single Traffic Stop
But when the police dog did not trigger and they continued searching, that completely changes the situation. They clearly did understand that the first search was improper, and they were "doubling down". They needed to find contraband to justify their actions.
I'm left speechless by the body cavity search. I can imagine drugs being carried that way when crossing a border or entering a prison. But it seems extremely improbable when driving in a private car.
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